Thursday, January 22, 2009

Obrigado

It means thank you in Portuguese. Quite different from "gracias". I expected Spanish and Portuguese to be more similar but they're not. Especially when I hear the locals talk. I can't pick up anything anyone is saying in Portuguese except for single word answers.

I don't know exactly why, but Portuguese sounds a bit like Russian or eastern European to me. It might be because they pronounce the letter s as like "zgsh".

When walking around town looking at signs though, it's a bit easier to see similarities to Spanish or English. Also, many of the citizens of Porto seem to know a little bit of English, and so I've had a fairly easy time here.

Like I said before I entered Egypt, I look like an obvious foreigner now, and so most people know to automatically speak English to me, so I don't have to walk around guessing who might speak English and asking them. The ones that are able to address me in English give me the sign with their body language that they are open to conversing or helping me out.

I've enjoyed Porto quite a bit. I stayed here longer instead of heading to Lisbon for a few days. I'll write my summary of Porto tomorrow after I leave on a bus for Malaga, Spain to meet up with my friend Yan.